Culinary Delights and Trips Close to Home

I'm sorry that I haven't been more consistent with accounts of our travels in and around Rome. We have been taking some day trips on our days when the temple is closed. Two weeks ago we visited a couple of tiny villages that were absolutely delightful. We met an American couple (Craig and Jody Anderson) at Church who bought a huge villa out in a small village called Calstelnuovo di Farfa. It's about an hour and a half drive southeast of Rome through beautiful scenery. They invited us and the Thordersons to drive up for the afternoon and have dinner with them. On the way there, we stopped in Isola del Liri and walked through a very memorable village. There's a natural waterful in the middle of town, the manhole covers have unique mosaics on them--which must have cost a bundle.

As is the case with many Italian cities, they have zones where traffic is prohibited for most vehicles and the cities impose hefty fines for simply entering the zones. I got a ticket in the mail from the police in Florence for our last trip. I had no idea I had crossed a ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitata) and the fine was a little over 100 bucks. I got two notices the same day. The first one said if I paid it two weeks before the letter arrived it was only 70 Euros. The other letter said the grace period was past and I owed 100 Euros. Well, we knew this town had a ZTL so we parked on the periphery and walked through. There's a sign where people apparently stop to see the waterfall and take their picture. The town has installed a sign noting that's it's obligatory to kiss there. I was standing next to Eric Thorderson when we noticed the sign and so we ....quickly found our wives and took photos.

There was a pastry shop along the road and everyone wanted to get some hot chocolate--it's winter now with temperatures often dipping into the low fifties. Hot chocolate is one of my favorite culinary memories of my mission. One of my companions noted that Italian hot chocolate was a lot like melted candy bars--consistency rather than taste. You need to add sugar. Before adding sugar to her cup Robyn suggested that I take a photo because it was so thick the spoon stood upright in the cup.

As we meandered towards the Anderson's villa, we stopped at a small beautiful lake.

I didn't take any photos at the villa--I think because I was so astounded at the whole thing. It's huge and was built in 1776. it was amazing.

Life has Returned Back to Normal

 My son and his family returned to the states two weeks ago--and seeing them and our grandchildren again was wonderful. We went to hike in the Dolomites, to explore Venice. Florence, Rome and Sardinia together. I think everyone had as close to a riot as is possible traveling hundreds of miles in tiny Italian cars. 

My son Nate taught me how to break a banana in half.  The secret is in the elbows--seriously.  It took me only a couple of bananas before I could do it reliably. The first two bananas were a total loss, but now I can walk in the kitchen, ask Robyn if she wants a half of a banana and then break it in half with my bare hands.

Taxi fare from the airport to our apartment is about 80 bucks each way. With Nate and his wife and their four kids it would have cost 160 bucks to get them home via two taxis, and it was about the same to rent a van so that's what we did. We rented a van to drive down to Pompeii, dropped it off the next morning at the airport on our way to Sardinia and then we rented another van when we came back from Sardinia that Nate drove to the airport the next morning. I think that worked out very well.

Sunrise in Olbia, Sardinia

Sardinia was beautiful; and since it's no longer tourist season or beach season for Italians, the places we went were nearly deserted. The kids got to play on several beaches, we took a ferry boat (with the van) out to a famous island--that I can't remember the name of--and stayed at a resort hotel the last three days that it was open for the year. It closes mid-October, and there were probably 25 guests staying in this huge resort while we were there.  They had a nice pool with a water slide and a beautiful view. Perhaps because we were the only people at the resort, all the employees were very solicitous of helping us any way they could. 

View of The Resort's Swimming Pool When We Arrived

Guests who check into a hotel in Italy are required to have their ID checked--and that means if you're a foreigner, they're required to register your passport.  We arrived late in the evening after the office people had gone for the night and so they asked us to leave our 8 passports until the next morning.  The next morning, I went down to retrieve our passports and we talked for a few minutes about how to get to the beach and what they recommended for meals. I mentioned that I needed to get our passports. They asked what rooms we were in the clerk went over to the desk, grabbed the stack of passports and then said, "Wait, these are American passports. You're not Italian?"  That was the nicest thing she could have said to me. She said that my accent indicated I was from northern Italy.  

Then she said, "How can you speak Italian?"  I said, "I don't know, I woke up one morning and I could speak Italian."  (That's not the first time I've used that line.)  They all laughed and then demanded a better answer. I told them that my wife and I live in Rome and they decided I had grown up in Italy.  When I explained that we'd only been there for nine months, they said, "So your parents are Italian?"  I said, "No, they're Americans too."  This was very mysterious to them.  I explained that 49 years ago I lived in northern Italy for nearly 2 years as an LDS missionary. They were very complimentary that I could have learned to speak with a northern Italian accent in a little over two years.  I didn't explain that I have spoken Italian at every possible opportunity in those intervening years. We all had a very enjoyable chat.  There must be something about my accent though, because last Saturday a Roman asked me if I was from the Veneto region (Verona and Venice area.)   

Grandma Robyn enjoying the family

I Have No Idea Where We Are or Where We've Been

 

My daughter-in-law set the itinerary for our first week together in Italy. We picked them up outside the Venice Airport and immediately drove to the Dolomites. 

We're now in a village called "Ortisei" which I thought might have something to do with "six grains" but our hotelier explained it's the Italian version of the German name for Saint Urtijei--which is also the German name for Saint Ullrich. We drove through some scary roads to get here, but I have been assured that on the return trip to Venice we'll take conventional roads. 

Here in this village most everyone speaks three languages: Italian (with a German accent), German (with an Italian accent), and Ladin--which is a language spoken only in parts of the Dolomite Mountains. I asked our hotel clerk to speak some of it to me and it sounds like a really guttural German--which before I heard it, I wouldn't think there could be something more guttural; but this language has sounds from way further down the throat than German.

Children at school are required to study all three languages. I looked up Ladin on the web. The locals call it Ladino, but that's also the name of a Jewish language spoken mostly in Israel. Northern European, Ashkenazi Jews speak Yiddish, while Jews from Sephardic regions speak Ladin. Many of the Jews who settled in Spain were Sephardic and Ladin has very strong Spanish elements. The Ladino of the Dolomites is not at all related to the Sephardic Ladino.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon but this is a ski town that's mostly shut down before the ski season so we couldn't find anywhere reasonable to eat. There are some really swanky hotels that are open (and our less swanky but still impressive hotel and a few grocery stores are open. We got some groceries and put together a fairly German meal and then the kids did their homework. I needed to decompress after the stressful drive--I think the first time I've been carsick while I was the driver.

 

The vistas here are incredible. We hiked through several areas, and I heard a Scottish fellow explain my own experience to his friends, "I can't believe I took so many photographs of the same mountain peak!" 

This is really the end of the summer tourist season so there aren't huge crowds; but we still run across quite a few people taking in the scenery from all over the world. Most of the people we encountered yesterday were from Germany. 

After a late lunch at a ski lodge, we stopped to watch a farrier shoe a couple of horses. A herd dog (looked to me like a blue heeler) brought me a piece of bark about the size of a fifty-cent piece with the expectation that I would play fetch with him. Since it only weighed about 2 ounces, I couldn't throw it more than about 10 feet, but the dog was overjoyed. I noticed a stick that was about 6 inches long and showed it to the dog. He was happy to fetch it but wouldn't drop it when he brought it back. I tried to take it out of his mouth but he was resolute.  After a minute or two, he spit out the piece of bark and indicated he was ready to continue with the fetch game--but only with the bark.  We threw it several times and he'd pick it up with the larger stick still in his mouth, bring it back and spit out only the piece of bark.

The Dolomites

 I remember the first time a saw the Dolomite mountain range from the train in Italy. While I love the Rocky Mountains, the vistas of these mountains are breathtaking. I learned something this week about the pine trees in these mountains. They're deciduous conifers, called Larch. The needles turn yellow in the fall and drop so they aren't evergreens. Here's an autumn scene you won't see often of pine trees.

I also wanted to share the view outside our hotel room window.

We have had other friends visiting us for the past couple of weeks. It's made it difficult to keep up on posts, but I'll catch up soon.

Everywhere looks like a scene out of "Heidi." It's apparent that people mow everywhere. In talking with my son, we concluded that it must be to reduce the fire danger. I don't think I'll ever feel overwhelmed having to mow my lawn in Salt Lake.

My oldest son and his family are visiting for a few days. It is wonderful to see them and hear them.

Tears of Joy

 I hope that the following story isn't too personal to share, but it explains why Robyn and I decided to come to Rome. It's a short story that spans nearly fifty years but started about three and a half years ago when a good friend, Jamie Lund suggested that I come with him, Eric Anderson and Elliott Nelson to help the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints conduct an open house for the newly completed Rome Temple. 

I wasn't convinced that we four old guys would be much help but figured that at least it might be a fun adventure. 

When we arrived, we learned that the Church really did need our help. The four of us had been missionaries to Italy when we were 19 years old, and now, over 40 years later, we could still speak Italian. In the intervening years since our missions, I had learned to converse in Spanish, Elliott was proficient in German, Eric could handle Dutch, and we also were pretty good in English. Consequently, we were assigned to work at the two security gates coming into the temple grounds. 

We decided who needed to enter the area among the last minute deliveries arriving every few minutes, and to keep out many others who didn't want to wait for the event to begin. The Italian government had also insisted that we had a security presence to guard against potential terrorists. 

Several dozen Italian Church volunteers had come from outside of Rome who, like us, had come to staff the open house. Those who had come as volunteers were easy to spot because they were older people who generally came in and out on foot after walking over to get their groceries at a nearby shopping mall.  They were staying in the facilities that would eventually provide housing for temple patrons. (Unlike many of the temples in other countries that have cafeterias, the Rome temple has a dining area with lots of ovens, stoves, refrigerators, sinks, and dishes where people can prepare the food they bring from the grocery stores. It's called a mensa--literally, a table where you sit down to eat--mostly in a public rather than a private sense.) It isn't called a cafeteria because in Italy that means a coffee shop and the church members would be scandalized by such a designation.)

Eric Anderson and I were working at the guard house on one of these days, but Eric has lost some of his eyesight, so I had to describe some things he couldn't see clearly. While trying to kindly greet the Italian church members and also kindly turn away others, two tiny, elderly women arrived at the guardhouse, each carrying two bags of groceries. We welcomed them and asked where they were coming from. One of the ladies said she had come from Prato--a city near Florence.  Eric Anderson had served part of his mission in Prato and was excited to greet this sweet lady carrying her groceries.  He said, "I was a missionary there about 40 years ago, but I can only remember one family from Prato--the Bagni family."

She looked up at Eric and sweetly said, "Elder Anderson, I'm the widow Bagni--from Prato." Suddenly, his face changed as he recognized a woman he had taught the gospel to when she was a young mother. He started to cry. Sister Bagni started to cry. I cried.

 We hugged each other and then promised to talk when there wasn't a line of people trying to get past the two tough security guards crying their eyes out.

As I think back to that experience, again and again, there is something about it that is so sweet that shows me that I can be so happy that I shed tears.  Now, nearly four years have transpired since that meeting. 

From among the steady procession of Italian members coming for a week or two at a time, last week, I saw sister Bagni arrive at the temple as I was stationed at the recommend desk. I asked her if she remembered me. She said that she did.  I told others about how we had met, and each time, she would smile and nod in agreement.  Today was her last day of vacation and she has to return home to Prato. 

She asked Robyn if she could get a picture of us before she left.  On our way out of the temple, we asked a friend to take a picture and she told me why she wanted the photo.

She said that she was reluctant to travel all this way alone because she is a widow and feels lonely and vulnerable.  She said that before she left she prayed and asked God to help her feel at ease taking this trip.  With the same voice that she explained to Eric that she was the "widow Bagni" she told me, "You were an answer to my prayer. When I saw you in the temple, it reminded me of when I was young and of the missionaries that came to teach me the gospel, and it made me feel safe." Of course we cried as we hugged each other and said goodbye.

I could use a good snow storm about now.

 It's so hot here the mosquitos have died.  I didn't know that was possible. 

We've had a fun and interesting week. We came across Phil Abbott and his wife on Monday and went out for...pizza together.  Robyn then convinced them to let us take the to our temple square and show them around. It was ten o'clock at night and none of the buildings were open; but we still had a good time.

I believe that some of the finest flower gardens in Rome are those at the Rome temple. These beautiful flowers only come out in full sun and they close up when dusk approaches.

That's me (Alma) standing in full sun next to the amazing flower display. I've tried to use sunscreen whenever outside and I noticed the other day that compared to some people I see, I could be mistaken for a pale vampire.

Most people take photos of this temple so that you can see the whole building; but I like the view through the flowers and olive trees.

We went to a birthday party for the temple president the other day.  A day or two before that, the people from our shift all went outside for a group photo in our white clothes. Many of the same people are in the photo from the birthday party.

They are the sweetest people I have ever known. It's so interesting to me that we can meet someone and within a day or two feel like they're some of our closest friends.  There is a high turnover here, in that people come for two or three weeks (often their vacation) and then return home. We learn about them, love them, and then they're gone.  We got really attached to a couple from Palermo, Sicily.  The husband, Alberto, always called me brother Alfred because many Italians say that instead of Allred.  

He calls me Alfred just for the fun of it because he can pronounce Allred with no problem.  The other day, they were headed back home to Sicily and Robyn and I drove them to the airport.  We both cried when we said goodbye.

The night before they left, they invited us over for some tiramasu. He also showed us how to make arancini. They look like oranges; but they are deep fried rice balls with meat and vegetables inside. 

A few minutes ago, I was sitting here on my bed writing this post and noticed a photo of one of my grandkids scroll across the screen. I miss them dearly but at the same time cannot believe how much fun we're having.  I expected this to be fun but had no idea how happy we would be here.

A Trip to Florence for the World's greatest ice cream.

 

Here is a group of some of our American friends who also work in the temple with us. The fellow on the far right is Paul Winder.  He's been here a couple of times at 90-day visits.  Italy doesn't allow foreigners to stay longer than 90 days unless they obtain a special visa--the Church gets visas for the missionaries they call, and it took us about 6 months to arrange for our visa--not as missionaries: but as bums.  We can't work for wages while here, we can only spend. Our visa is an elective residence--meaning we can stay as long as we don't become a burden on the economy.  Standing between  Robyn and the lady in the orange shirt is one of the temple missionaries--a retired Judge from Monticello, Utah. His wife is in the straw hat. Everybody else is here for a 90-day stint.  On Monday, we all took the train to Florence and spent the day doing whatever we wanted.  I ended up walking 12 miles (according to my smart watch.) I was looking for the best ice-cream in the world, and I found it three times.  I also gained one pound that day.  Robyn and Marina Spence spent most of the day in museums, and the rest had a wonderful day.  The photo was taken in front of the baptistery of Florence's main cathedral. Rick Steves says it's "pajama clad."

While walking, I found "Purgatory Street (Via Purgatorio); it's a dead end--a fact I found slightly entertaining. Here's a photo showing both the street name and the fact that it goes nowhere. I wonder how people feel about living on Purgatory in such a beautiful city.

   I ate $12 worth of ice cream as well as a sandwich later in the day. 

My favorite gelateria was closed--apparently always on Monday, so I went looking for other ice cream locations based on reports from other people.  The championship now belongs to La Carraia.  Not nearly as many flavors as Vivoli's, but I found today that you can really only have 6 or 7 flavors in a day anyway. At 6 flavors and 12 bucks a day it would take a week to try them all.  Never before have I had such delicious ice cream. 

Hopefully, this postscript will be in a place that Robyn will never read it, or she'd make me delete it.  One of the women ordinance workers came up to me the other day and said several of the women had decided that Robyn looked like Audry Hepburn.  She asked me if I agreed.  I said she reminded me more of Mary Tyler Moore from the Dick Van Dyke show. She said most of the women thought Hepburn was a better match. Yesterday, as we were waiting to leave at the door of the temple for our spouses, I was standing next to an Italian woman and so introduced myself.  Many of them are doubly surprised as I just tell them my first name.  Doubly surprised because in Italy, Alma is a fairly common woman's name, and a guy named Alma is obviously a member of the Church.  Just as I said my name, there was a slight commotion at the recommend desk and we all looked over there to see what was happening.  I don't know what it was that got our attention but I saw that Robyn was still dressed in white and at the recommend desk.  I said to the lady that I had just met, pointing to Robyn, "Ecco, mia moglie!"* 

She said, "Oh, my. Your wife is beautiful!"

I said, "I tell her that all the time, but she says I'm crazy."

"Is that so?" She answered. "Well, I'm going to tell her right now you are right!" She walked up to Robyn and said, "You are a very beautiful woman!" Robyn said "Thank you" and then looked at me with a little exasperation, and her eyes said, "You are in trouble, Buster."  I was just an innocent bystander that time.   

*(Literally translated, that's "Behold! My wife!" but it isn't nearly as biblical as it sounds.  In the grocery store, when you're next up at the checkout you can say, "Eccomi!" which is "Behold me!" --which really is only a slightly assertive, "I'm next.")